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Found
Found Season 1, Episode 9 of Mystic Keyes and his guards spent hours searching. I couldn't help but admire their willpower, but I also knew this meant Keyes hated me twice as much to keep looking for me for this long. Not good. Finally, they went back the way we came from. I heard snippets of their talk: "...come back tomorrow..." "...if she's here..." "...throw her into the Well..." I flinched. "The Well" was probably some other gruesome punishment they thought up for all prisoners in Aphyix. I shuddered—I would be long gone by tomorrow. Cautiously I slid down the trunk again. Maybe I could make a good enough getaway, and go back to the forest I had been in. Maybe I could find the portal again. And maybe, just maybe everything in the overworld would have been just a dream. The cave hadn't collapsed. Lazuli wasn't dead. I could go back to my normal—yet unappealing and dangerous—life as a rogue. I walked until my paws were sore. In a sudden transition the trees became skinny, tangled, and barren. The sky was pitch black, the shadows massed, and rancid puddles hung in potholes I—more often than not—fell into, emerging a stinking, wet scrap. I was wet and aching, cold to my bones, by the time I could see through the ceiling of branches to the moon. I realized if Keyes's guards were to come looking for me at twilight, then I would be in a tired, uncomfortable, and bad place to do any of this "escaping" business. "I apologize, General Keyes, but this getaway wouldn't have gotten this far, let alone survive in the Borderlands...you'd need the abilities...and the flower..." I stiffened along my spine to my tail tip. I swiveled my ears and calculated how far away Keyes and his guards would be. Maybe till the giant oak right there? The bushes? Someone began talking right behind my ear. I nearly jumped three times my height and slowly turned around. "See anything?" "Nope." They were on the other side of the leafy wall between us. I mentally let out a sigh of relief and stiffened my figure against the wall, hoping with the dark green grime from the water on my fur I would blend in, at least somewhat. My pursuers rounded the end and came back—this time on my side. My eyes grew round and my breath came out in small, quiet little puffs. I pressed myself back even harder, fearing my scent would give me away. The shadowy shapes of the guards floated into my view. "Scent anything?" I heard Keyes called back. "No, sir," a guard replied as he scouted the ground. "Just some musty scent. Smells like algae." Yes! I thought. The reek from the water is hiding my scent! "It is getting late," Keyes mewed in resignment. "We'd better return. If she's here again, we might pick up her trail and find her whereabouts, where she's hiding." "General Keyes, we'd best come back during the daytime, in case she is hiding in the shadows," a guard piped up. Keyes stiffened. "Yes," he replied. Then he turned— —and stared directly into my eyes. "Yes, we should." ~ Come morning I had climbed into a pine and sank into a prickly bed of needles. Today, my job was to make sure I wasn't captured by Keyes—and that alone was going to take all of my willpower. Absentmindedly, I glowered up at the sky. Why had this happened? What had I done to Keyes? Was he out to arrest me because I had run away in the beginning, or had showed attitude? Whatever it was, I wished someone could sort everything out for me, so I could wake up from this dream. When I was a rogue, nothing like this had ever happened. Sure, I felt unloved and unwanted, but at least I was independent. I hated depending someone to do work for me. And even though all this went through my mind, I was surprised at what first went through my head:'' I miss you, Lazuli.'' And even though we were short-sighted, I'll never stop missing you. I stared at a pool of water laying in the crease of a bough. Water lazily ran down an overhanging branch and landed in the pool with a splatter. Drip. Drip. Drip. I stared at the water, wanting to strangle it, blaming it for everything that had happened. It fell so calmly, as if everything was okay. Everything's NOT okay! ''I wanted to scream. ''So stop pretending it is. I glared at the pool some more, until something seemed to change in it. I blinked, thinking it was just some brights in my eyes. Something was moving within the pool. I crept closer and nearly jumped out of my fur. A gruesome creature, with one patched and one cloudy eye, stared back at me from the pool, almost as if it were right above me, and I was looking at its reflection. Slowly, my muzzle visibly shaking, I gave a quick glance above me. Nothing. Then what...? "Do not be fooled, young cat." The voice nearly startled me out of my fur. I stared above my head again at a cat, equally grotesque as its reflection, peering down at me from the branch above. "W-who a-are you?" I stuttered. "You weren't there a second ago!" And how did your face turn out this way? "You shouldn't ask me questions like that," the cat chided. "It's not nice." "Like what?" Did it hear what I was thinking? But no, that's impossible... "It is possible, cat," it mewed. "And do not refer to me as 'it'. I am Rock." "Wait...you can hear what I think?" I stuttered. "But how?" Rock stared at me, though apparently completely blind. "So you havent'' figured it out by now?"'' "Well...no." I circled my branch and sat down. "What do I need to figure out? All I know is that I had some kind of viewing in the puddle..." My voice trailed away. "Yes?" "The Stirrings, isn't it?" I breathed. "B-but Lazuli told me not to think of it but a stirring. It can't be anything." "You are very easily fooled, young Wintergreen." How does he know my name? "Do not listen to that cat. She is blinded, and easily overrides feelings for you by the fact that she wants what she wants...and she wants it now." "Wait, are you talking about Lazuli?" I blinked. "She's'' dead''." "Are you sure about that, Wintergreen?" That shut me up. I had feeling Rock knew much, much more than me, and he wasn't willing to share. And I wasn't ready to speak as if I knew anything with him around. "Okay, can we start over?" I asked, a little uncertainly. "Who are you, and what do you want with me?" Rock gave a laugh. "If I told you that, Wintergreen, you would know less than before." "Er, what?" Where was I going with this? "Confusion. Confusion is the key," Rock continued. He slid down the central trunk and onto my branch. "Would you happen to know, young cat, about the Clans?" "What Clans?" I asked, confused. "Here? I only just arrived at Aphyix." "No, in the overworld," Rock sniffed impatiently. "They existed, as real as you or I, Wintergreen. Though it has been a long, long time since then." What is he trying to tell me? "To answer that question," Rock continued, "we would have to go a long way back. Possibly even...travel back. And then, Wintergreen, you will see the beginning of your Clans, and have all of your questions answered." Category:Mist's Fanfictions Category:Mystic